Supporters of Question 3 (to expand firearm background checks to private sales) continually repeat this key campaign talking point: “Question 3 on November’s ballot is simple, straight-forward and common sense. It requires a background check for all gun sales and transfers, with exceptions for family members, hunting and self-defense.”

What is SAM's position on background checks? From this writing and others I have read from SAM, while they seem to claim that passage of Q3 will raise havoc with loaning guns, etc. It is, evidently, a certainty that SAM supports background checks. But how far is SAM prepared to go in a "compromise" to appease the leftists?

Good question Tom. As far as I know, there has been no position taken with regards to current law or other potential proposals.

My personal position is to stay with what we have for the time being and consider new proposals as they come.

As far as I know, the Second Amendment is the only Constitutional Right that currently requires a background check to exercise, which many consider to be a "guilty until proven innocent" approach. It's ironic that many of the same people who rail against voter ID to exercise their right to vote are quick to demand background checks for firearms "transfers" as this referendum proposes.

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson

"As individual fingers we can easily be broken, but together we make a mighty fist." - Sitting Bull

*All posts reflect my personal views, not necessarily those of any organizations with which I am affiliated.

Question 3 proponents have cleverly redefined “transfers” to mean any occurrence in which a person furnishes, gives, lends or otherwise provides, with or without “consideration” a firearm.

This potential massive new expansion of the application of the federal NICS background check extends the mandatory NICS check far beyond selling a firearm.

In addition, the proposed law requires that firearm dealers who agree to facilitate a sale or transfer under that section must “process the sale or transfer as though selling or transferring the firearm from its own inventory.”

What that means is every non-exempt firearm “transfer” in which gun owners have traditionally shared or loaned firearms, such as loaning a trusted friend a shotgun to go hunting or for target practice on private property, or for potential self-defense use, involves a form 4473, submitting to a NICS background check and paying the dealer’s fee.

If the law passes this is what loaning a firearm to a friend would look like:

First, you and a friend would have to meet at the premises of a federally licensed firearm dealer willing to conduct the “transfer.” The dealer would take the firearm you intend to loan, have your friend fill out a 4473 form, and call the NICS hotline. If your friend passes the check, the dealer would take the firearm into his inventory, complete the form 4473 and any other necessary paperwork, and charge a fee, likely between $30 and $50. [50$ MINIMUM; an unwanted, time consuming cash cow for FFL dealers]

Seems simple, except that for all legal purposes your friend appears to be the owner of record, so in order to get your gun back, you should have a formal loan agreement, at an additional unknown cost. That isn’t all.

In order to get your gun back (another “transfer”), you have to do the same thing in reverse — undergo the NICS check and pay another $30-$50. Estimated cost of loaning your gun to a friend: around $60-$100, plus the cost of a loan agreement.

Supporters of Question 3 say there are exemptions, except those are so narrowly written they cause more problems than they solve. For example the hunting exemption is only for when the lender and borrower are together and the hunting “activity is legal in all places where the transferee possesses the firearm.” There are a thousand different situations where this may cause a problem: legal hunting hours, posted land, buffers around farm buildings, and the like.

In addition, because the law creates a vast new area of potential criminal offenses, hunters risk encounters with law enforcement and potentially being charged with a class D crime, (first offense), punishable by a fine up to $2,000 and a year in jail; for a second offense, a class C felony, punishable by up to five years imprisonment and a $5,000 fine (and the loss of firearm rights forever under federal law). That, for an offense of simply handing a gun to another person who is not otherwise prohibited from firearm possession.

Question 3 is far from “common sense” or “simple.”

Those people who support background checks for firearm sales should ask their legislators to introduce a bill in the next session that truly and genuinely addresses such sales, but vote against Question 3. It goes way too far.

This may be “out there” for a hypothetical situation, but here it goes.

Let’s say a person dies and leaves behind a firearm collection. Let’s also say that the executor of the will does not meet the narrowly defined criteria set down in the law. Would they become a criminal when they attempted to perform their duty?

So, (Heaven forbid) I die. I have chosen my best friend as the executor to my will to spare my mother the unpleasantness of having to deal with the settling of my (extremely meager) estate. It would seem to me that if the settlement of my estate were to move forward, the following would have to happen.

My mother, who just lost her only child, would have to transport all my firearms to a dealer so that the executor of my will can undergo the background check in order to dispose of my property. This will involve the processing of 25+ firearms through the dealer’s books. It’s hardly likely that the dealer would settle for just a $25-$50 fee. I’m seeing $100 to $200 + in fees leaving less for my mother.

Once everything is transferred, my mother decides that she wants to keep the shotgun that she and my dad purchased for me when I was 14. Because the firearms were transferred to the executor, he would have to bring the shotgun back to the dealer in order for my 72-year-old mother (who would also have to travel to the dealer) to have a background check to get back a shotgun she and my dad gave me all those years ago.

“He’s a Christian man that does not drink, period,” “Unless he’s working.”"I guess I appreciate the freedom of press but this was an attack." Col. Joel“The facts are fabricated, the story’s exaggerated,” Woodcock said. “It makes for great reading.”